Graeme Rose sent me a tweet yesterday

The Dundee Contemporary Arts is inviting people in with under-18 month old kids to see Kick Ass on May 6. (That TBA at the end isn’t for the certificate BTW, I think it’s telling you that the words t*t, bas**rd and ass probably feature lots in the movie.) (Yes, that was a gag.)

For those who don’t know, Kick Ass tells the tale of a teen who decides to become a superhero – but without the powers – he gets beat up, tries again, gets filmed on YouTube, becomes a celebrity and then discovers there are other vigilantes in town, including a foul-mouthed, ultra-violent little girl. I did a review here.

Now I know it’s great that parents get a chance to see films in the cinema. I appreciate that. I would just find a babysitter, but not everyone is that fortunate that they can find at least one person in this world to watch their child for two hours or so.

But this is not a film to take kids to for a few reasons:

1) Under-18 months or not, kids still pick up on stuff. And if this is anything like the comic, there will be some very choice language.
2) It’s violent and if you have a kid watching the screen, do you really want that going into your kid’s head?
3) What are you doing letting someone so young watch a screen anyway? (this one, I’ll admit is just me. Many people have no issue with young kids and TV)

Now it’s nice that the DCA is helping to promote a film created by a Scot, I applaud the idea of cinema for parents, but the concept’s a bit weak here. I accept that it might be cost-prohibitive to build a softplay for the kids so adults can go and watch the movie for a while without the cries of a child.

But this is not a movie for wee ones.

(I still remember the kids aged 6-10 going into see The Dark Knight. Not many lasted past the scene with the pencil. And again, what were the parents thinking…)

Now Graeme thinks someone at the DCA just went ‘oh it’s based on a comic, it will be OK’ but they haven’t. The text for the event states:

It has everything you’d want from a traditional comicbook adaptation but it also has a wicked foul-mouthed sense of humour.

Whoever picked this, knows exactly what the film is. Now this might just be a PR stunt – shame on me then – but if not, it’s incredulous. No doubt some people will say I’m being over-protective and so on, but I don’t think so. This is a very violent/strongly-worded film. You let a kid watch this, you might as well let them watch anything. Good luck with the psychiatry bills.

*As you may have guessed – here’s my review of the movie script from back in 2008 – I didn’t like Kick Ass as a comic or a script. It’s nothing against Mark Millar, he’s a very nice guy, has written some really good stuff and I wish him all the best. Kick Ass though, just didn’t appeal to me. Even worse, I can already see some of the stunts that will happen around this film, the inevitable Daily Mail outrage and so on.